I live in rural Essex and "cable/anything other than ADSL" seems to be a million years away, so I live with speeds of "up to" 8mb (usually less) from my exhange.
I was with BT for a long time and still have my phone package with them. But after 6 frustrating months of trying to play Age of Conan properly (and being "told off" by one of BT's foreign dudes for playing online games in peaktime - and THEN being told to only play it in the mornings.... ?!?!?), I switched to Fast.
It was a gamble, because I only suspected that BT were throttling my bandwith in peaktimes, I had no way to find out for sure.
Our house was a heavy user at the time, around 70+ gb per month, so I'm on Fast's highest package of 110gb per month - and it IS expensive :(
Thing is, I've had no problems since and I still can't be sure that will happen elsewhere. Tech support has been fine when I've had any problems (twice now, when speeds seemed to suddenly drop - turns out BT occasionally like to put my account back down to 1.2mb from 8mb >:( )
The only annoying thing for me is that two of my adult children have left home now and our average usage is around 45-6ogb per month, so we don't need the 110gb any more - but the next level down is 45gb per month and we can't quite hit that!
So I'm paying a high price for being able to play my online games in peace - even though I still occasionally have problems just because our exchange is using BT ADSL and it has problems of its own some nights.
So I'm staying with Fast for now because it gives me the certainty I need - but I can't really afford it, tbh, and some of the cheaper broadband providers do look tempting when it gets to the last week before payday....
Fast.co.uk Broadband Reviews
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Fast.co.uk have been very good to me... It's an actual human company that you can phone up and, quite often, the guy who answers the phone is the MD; his name is Mark. They give me free MX backup and static IP - not because of some marketing drive, but because I've been a customer for a while.
So many technology service providers in this day and age are nothing more than an 0800 number and an email address. This lot feel like a bunch of people trying to do something a bit better than the norm. It IS more expensive, but quite frankly, you get what you pay for. There is no 'fair usage policy' - if need more bandwidth, you buy it - they do not throttle the line at any point, on any port, if you are within your download quota. Which makes them fairly unique, I think.
I've needed to phone their technical support up on very few occasions; once, all the technical support people were busy, so I hung up. Three minutes later, THEY phoned ME up and said they'd seen that I had called and was everything ok and did I need any support? That's not the way most of the operators out there behave.
That's my experience with them and I can't recommend them highly enough based on that....
Cheers!
Jeremy. -
I suppose there is a natural bias on this sort of website for people to report bad experiences rather than satisfaction (which after all is no more than we should expect). I have to say that in the 3 or more years I have been with Fast I've had a good service, with reasonable speeds most of the time (and I am in the Scottish Highlands where this is often a big problem and fibre optics/ cables are a distant dream). Fast are markedly expensive for sure, and from time to time I'm tempted to move to cheaper alternatives. However, I then recall the sheer blood-boiling horror of being with Tiscali and that makes me very hesitant to leave an acceptable service for the unknown. My household is a relatively heavy user (around 80 - 100 Gb per month) and at least I know I can get that without being slapped down by a so-called "fair use" ( as in "f. u." ) policy, or have ports blocked or whatever. And customer service from Fast has in my experience been really good on the rare occasions I have had to use it.
Let's face it, the whole UK broadband market is a lottery and a disgrace, made even worse by the BT monopoly on landlines. It needs to be properly regulated, with some genuine consumer protection: government keeps making the right noises but doing almost nothing. Internet access is no longer a luxury, and if our electricity or water supplies were as dreadfully unreliable as most Internet services it would bring governments down. -
i agree with kieth fast.co.uk are over hyped poor internet service for the money customer service is good ok customer is a good thing but internet speed is what you want. i have changed my isp now and my speed is back up to fall line rate 6.5mb not 2.5mb no more problems which fast.co.uk could not fix
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I was with Fast.co.uk for a number of years, I think that as a company they have a good marketing campaign which disguises mediocre quality of service (line speed etc)and support. I have a reasonable knowledge and like a lot of people I suspect, I rarely need the assistance of ISP support. I did notice, when confronted with line speed issues during 2010 (reduced from 5mb to 2mb down), that like a lot of people have mentioned in comments around the 'Net, the Fast support team appear to rely on technicalities to get the user to go away - when I queried why I had received no warning that I was approaching my d/l limit for the month I was informed that it was an SSL issue at my end and to go deal with it; I actually know what this means but I suspect that many users wouldn't - yes they answer the 'phone quickly, but rarely it seems, in my experience do they actually work thru an issue, thru the use of jargon they appear to want to get the user off the line as FAST as possible - I actually ended up paying an additional few quid to keep the service going, despite the fact that their website was inaccessible for me to check my usage. I have to say, to my amazement - and I have no affiliations whatsoever with TT, that since leaving Fast my gaming pings have halved and its convinced me that Fast are over hyped and overly expensive for the service they offer.
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excuse after excuse everybody fault but theirs advoid high price poor service farce.co.uk
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i agree with jez their speed is a lot slower 2010. it was fast now it at snail speed
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IMHO their speeds have got a lot slower in 2010.
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Just to add to the positive comments above, you WILL NOT find a better ISP than Fast - was with Plusnet before - absolute rubbish - was getting 10 to 30 Kb/s maximum for P2P downloads, moved to Fast, now 600 to 800 Kb/s!!
Customer service is fantastic, technical staff - UK based and answer within 5 rings or call you back!!
Expensive, but you get what you pay for!! Think of it like buying Tesco Finest bacon (Fast) versus budget sausages (other ISP's!) -
I have been using fast.co.uk for about 2 years now. I find the performance and support to be both first class. I am one of those lucky people who have an 8meg line speed, and certainly we nearly get that when the download site allows it.
My company installs Broadband for customers and fixes any problems that they may have (www.broadbandfixit.com). When a customer needs a first rate service, I always recommend Fast. It is a bit more expensive, but well worth it. Our company uses it for voice over IP connections as well. This gives us several phone lines over the single Broadband connection. -
Yes there speed is good but i have just migrated to TitanADSL 24Mb unlimited service and i am paying a few pennies less than i was paying fast.co.uk and with unlimited usage.
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I have been with Fast for, I'm guessing, a couple of years and they are unassailable in their technical support excellence - an object lesson for other ISP's. They seem to be small and, as a result, agile and caring. I thoroughly recommend them.
The one slight issue I have is that the monthly rate I am paying is now starting to look rather expensive in the market generally. While it's no fault of Fast (the BT exchange I think!) I don't get more than 4.3GB down against an 8GB contract so, in real terms, I am paying apremium price for average performance albeit with great customer service.
Fast are positioning for a higher speed offering when BT permits and, hopefully, they will use this opportunity to look again at their monthly rates. They are still worth the premium but be careful the gap doesn't get too big guys... -
Excellent customer service. We've been with Fast now for 2 years & have no complaints whatsoever. Had a glitch a couple of months ago & had to phone them. Yes, you do get to speak to someone straight-away & they know what they're talking about (our prob. had nothing to do with the broadband - it was our computer!!). The second time we had to phone them the line was engaged but 5 mins. later THEY PHONED US BACK - unbelievable!! Cannot recommend highly enough (although they're probably not the cheapest, you get what you pay for!!)
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I was in need of a new broadband ISP, so after quite a bit of research, decided upon fast.co.uk.
- Firstly, I liked the fact they have a normal telephone number (rather than the usual 0845/0870 or premium rate lines on which one is often required to wait, on a good day, 15-20 minutes to get through, at my expense).
- Secondly, I liked the fact that they don't use crafty bandwidth shaping or throttling. If I am paying for a 8mbps connection, say, then I would not expect this to be throttled down to 1mbps should I wish to watch streamed media.
- Thirdly, and I didn't find this out until after I signed up with them, support e-mails are answered in minutes rather than weeks - this is a first for me with any comany, ISP or not. Not just a canned response that could have been written by and to anyone, but a proper tailored answer written by a human being. This shouldn't be surprising, but it is.
- Forthly, the telephone is quickly answered by someone who knows what they are talking a -
Joined FAST after getting fed up with Virgin's poor speed in the evenings. So far FAST have been excellent. You talk to a human and up to now I have been getting full speed download and upload speed ANY time of day. Refreshing.
